The Substance of Fire Theatre Review by Matthew Murray

Heat can come by way of strong bursts or a long, slow, steady smolder, and which you prefer for your theatrical consumption is what’s likely to determine your reaction to the new revival of The Substance of Fire at Second Stage. In director Trip Cullman’s take, Jon Robin Baitz’s 1991 play abandons any precepts of being a searing star vehicle, and examines instead the way different embers can feed upon and smolder themselves. In both the original production (which started at Playwrights Horizons and then moved to the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center) and the substantially different 1996 film, Ron Rifkin played to great acclaim the centering role of Isaac Geldhart. The Manhattan literary scion, who’s built his career on releasing eclectic, socially relevant volumes that capture the Europe eviscerated by World War II, escaped extermination, but at the expense of his family; four decades later, he seems unaccountably willing to sacrifice his own children for sake of his own history-minded ideals.